


One of those Little Sponges

by compo67



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Bottom Jared, Character Death, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dark, Deaf Character, Harassment, Homelessness, Hurt Jared, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Object Insertion, Physical Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad Ending, Torture, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:04:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1501217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared is a junior in high school doing his best to survive. He is hard of hearing and sees the world differently than most people. He also sees a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of those Little Sponges

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS. Proceed with caution, this is dark!fic with a major character death. There are graphic scenes of torture and violence and not a happy ending. 
> 
> I was trolling through the kink meme for this month and there was a prompt that wanted torture fic. What I wrote isn't a fill (different pairing) but the prompt sparked this. It's dark, guys. It Takes kind of dark. Look, Look kind of dark. :( 
> 
> Also, a nod to cherie_morte for their fic "In the Small of My Heart." I loved the ending to that fic so much, it's stuck with me ever since I read it. The ending here is similar and it's all because of how that fic was set up. Loved it. If you read it, read the warnings as I hope you have here. 
> 
> Ugh, what a way to start a Monday. Sorry. :( I'll try to upload a chapter of Your Law or House to make up for this.
> 
> (But ugh I love me some hurt!Jared...)

There’s a boy at school Jared knows a lot about.

He knows that this boy has freckles and tawny, toffee hair, and he’s on the photography club and he doesn’t like Meatloaf Mondays. This boy is a senior, so he doesn’t exactly notice Jared, who is a junior, but that’s okay. Jared likes to observe. He likes to watch this boy lean against the bank of lockers in the main hallway while he talks to girls and other boys about their weekend plans. He likes to watch this boy get into his brand new car and drive away to wherever he’s going, happy and carefree.

That’s all good enough for him.

 

One night is awful.

It takes Jared several nights to recover.

He doesn’t show up for school until a few days later. It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He does. He loves school. He loves learning, even if he never really learned how to read that well and his teachers have been passing him with D averages just to shuffle him through the system. But he also loves the heat in the winter and the cool, fine air conditioning in the beginning of summer. Oh, and free electricity. Sometimes he’ll sneak away from the cafeteria and sit in one of the unused art room in the corner of the buidling. He’ll drag a stool over and spin around on it while he switches the lights on and off. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. His breath catches when it’s dark; he exhales a little easier when the room fills with light.

He loves the free meals, even if it’s from the line very few at this school go to. Every day he presents one ticket to the lunch ladies, whom he knows by name now and they try to sneak him extras. He gratefully takes his tray. That’s okay if it’s a boloney sandwich today. He eats it piece by piece, stretching it out, making it last at least ten minutes. Each bite and every chew is measured. He licks his fingers at the end and starts on the bag of slightly stale tortilla chips. Once again, chip by chip, he makes it last. Next is the apple, which he slices and munches on happily, eating every slice in fourths. The big finish is the oatmeal raisin cookie vacuumed sealed in crinkly plastic that he opens carefully and smoothes out after.

He loves those lunches. Even when the cafeteria ladies apologize—on their own behalf—for the stringiness of the chicken cutlet or the sour taste to the lasagna, he eats every single bite. His plates are kept neat and returned completely clean.

He loves being surrounded by books. They calm him down. They promise him things, even when it’s hard to read them. That’s okay. He never checks anything out but he has the librarians set some aside for him every week. This week he is trying really hard to get through _Tom Sawyer_. It’s one of his favorites so far. In class they’re reading _Othello_ , which is lovely to hear when read out loud by Mr. Gallagher but confusing and frustrating when Jared tries to read it on his own. Tom is much more obliging—obliging is a word the nurse used the other day to describe Jared. It means accommodating, which means that Jared is very easy to work with. He loves that.

He loves the free band aids and the ice packs Mrs. O’Dell gives him for his eyes. This week, before the bad night happened, it was one for his right eye. That eye always swells up more than the left. She knows, she tells him every week, he doesn’t have to keep reminding her. She knows.

He loves the one piece of candy that Mr. Gallagher gives him every time they meet in his office on Mr. Gallagher’s free hour. He is the only teacher that really cares. Jared insists that Mr. Gallagher cares _too_ much; the other kids need the attention more than he does. But Mr. Gallagher has Jared read through _Tom Sawyer_ anyway.

He loves the free showers in the locker rooms but he has to be careful there. Mrs. O’Dell scolded him when he came to her after a bad afternoon in the locker room. She said one day an ice pack and some Neosporin wouldn’t be able to fix him. That’s okay. It’s alright. He told her he was so happy that Mr. Jones, the school janitor, was going to let him come in a little early in the mornings during the winter. It gets really cold outside, he told Mrs. O’Dell as she cleaned up his lip that day. Sometimes he sleeps under the bleachers but he can’t do that much longer because the ground is starting to grow ice.

“Ice doesn’t grow from the ground,” she said firmly and pressed an ice pack into his hand. “Go.”

When he didn’t show up for three days in a row, Mr. Gallagher had to report it. Important people came and they scooped Jared up and they gave him a ride to school in a car with lights. After another ice pack and look over from Mrs. O’Dell, Jared goes to another office. The principal, Ms. Shelly, sighs and tells Jared that truancy is frowned upon. However, due to his circumstances, she’ll let him slide through with a slap on the wrist. Jared holds his wrists out to her and offers them up.

“What…what are you doing?” she blurts out, eyes wide.

Jared looks at his wrists. They’re a little marked up but that’s okay; she can still slap them.

She sends him to the guidance department and slams the door on his way out.

He doesn’t love that sound.

 

“Can I have one?”

“When we’re done.”

“Okay.”

“Now, Jared…”

“Just one.”

“Yes. One.”

“Okay.”

“Jared…”

“One!” Jared chirps and covers his mouth, trying not to smile. “Sorry. But… I get to have _one_.”

He’s excited, how can he help it? Mr. Daniels has a bowl of apples on his desk. They are all kinds of colors, too, not just the small, hard, red ones Jared gets during lunch. Some are as big as Jared’s hands. He sees some red ones, some green ones, and some yellow ones. He wonders how they taste different and why. Mr. Daniels picks up the bowl and places it on the other side of his desk, far away from Jared. Jared understands. He quiets down and looks at the floor. Oh. Serious time.

He wants one. He’ll be good.

“We’re placing you in a group. It’s the only group I have that’s even close to… to your situation.”

“Okay,” Jared murmurs. “Okay.”

Mr. Daniels says he can have an apple _next_ time.

And it’s funny but that makes Jared cry in the broom closet Mr. Jones set aside for him. He really wanted a green one.

 

The boy is here.

Here!

In the same room as Jared, just two arm lengths away as they share a couch in a small, windowless room. Every time the door opens, Jared flinches. More people pack into the room. The boy waves and laughs and settles into the cushions. He flashes a big smile at another boy. The other boy gives him a similar smile in return. Jared looks at the floor and picks at a stray thread on his sweater. He tries to smile to himself but it doesn’t work the same way.

Finally, an adult comes into the room. They are really friendly and introduce themselves to Jared as Mrs. Han, the group facilitator. “This is the Alternative Lifestyles Group,” she tells him with a nice voice. “Why don’t you introduce yourself to the group?”

Oh, oh but… they…

“That’s okay,” she says and pats his shoulder. “I’ll interept for you.”

He’s self-conscious about his speaking voice. It’s rough. He can speak around people he knows and he’s been told that his speech is getting better. But he doesn’t like to do it in front of new people and everyone in this room is a new person, even the boy.

Jared signs hello, his name, and it’s nice to meet everyone. Mrs. Han interprets. She adds that Jared is hard of hearing; he has some hearing but not a lot and he prefers to sign. He’ll be with them for a few weeks. Mrs. Han signs what she says even when Jared is the one she’s speaking about. That’s nice of her.

“Can you read lips?” a girl with bright pink hair and black lipstick asks. “Like a spy?” Jared knows that this is her question because Mrs. Han signs it to him. He signs back that he can but reading lips is hard. He doesn’t like to do it a lot and he misses every other word. She looks disappointed and Jared bites his bottom lip. Someone asks why he doesn’t get hearing aids or surgery, another person asks to hear Jared speak. The boy is silent. He’s looking at the other boy across the room. Jared shrinks like one of those little sponges that’s been used too many times to wash dishes.

By the end of the hour, Jared hasn’t said anything. Mrs. Han is busy with another student the one time Jared thinks of something to say so he doesn’t interrupt her.

Everyone leaves for class when the bell rings. Someone knocks their backpack into the back of Jared’s head. Mrs. Han doesn’t have a nice tone after everyone leaves. She signs that if Jared wants this to work he needs to participate. Okay. Okay, he’ll try.

He’ll try more next week.

 

Mr. Jones meets him at the south wing of the school at seven in the morning. Jared has been waiting outside since five thirty, curled up by the bleachers. He didn’t mean to come so early but he is tired and hungry. He stashed a granola bar from lunch three days ago—the first day of group—and he’d like to eat it for breakfast.

“You’re blue,” Mr. Jones grumbles. “Get in.”

The heavy door is held open for Jared, who squeaks a thank you and runs down the hallway towards his locker. He laughs halfway there. Heat! Oh, he’s going to take his granola bar into the art room and spin for a while. That’ll be nice.

Seven is early. School doesn’t start until eight thirty. Mr. Jones is nice. He catches up to Jared and asks him what the hell is he looking for? Jared digs around in his locker. He keeps nice things in it. Books he’s dug out of bins and plastic bags that come in handy when it rains. Walking three miles in the rain is much better if he has a bag to cover his head with. Three miles in the sun isn’t so bad; the neighborhood around the school gets pretty and green.

“Breakfast!” Jared says, holding up the granola bar triumphantly. “Want some?” He’d share half. He’d even give Mr. Jones the bigger half because he got here half an hour early just to let Jared in.

The offering is stared at for a second. Mr. Jones shakes his head. “No, you eat it.”

Jared doesn’t need to be told that twice. He unwraps it and takes a small nibble. Mr. Jones walks away and even though Jared had plans to visit the art room, he follows after the older man to the broom closet. A small pallet is there for Jared to sleep on. It looks comfy but Jared stays focused. He finishes his granola bar and takes a mop and bucket. Mr. Jones sighs and looks at him.

“Alright, but don’t miss a spot,” is all he says to Jared before grabbing another bucket and walking away.

 

Cleaning is fun. It’s neat to make things shiny and pretty again. He can mop fast if he has to but he takes his time. He can’t miss a spot. Carefully, he makes the girl’s bathroom on the first floor clean. He switches to the men’s room around the corner and hums to himself, uncaring if the tune is off-key.

The door opening startles him. He grips onto the mop and holds it to his chest.

It’s the boy.

“Uh, sorry,” the boy says, turning red. “I uh… kind of have to go…”

Jared steps aside and puts his head down. The boy must be here for practice. He isn’t watching. Wait, should he leave? But the boy steps forward and uses the urinal anyway. Jared looks at the mop until he hears the sound of a zipper. The boy washes his hands and uses a few towels. Jared is determined to stay as still as possible. As the boy leaves, without another word or look in his direction, Jared glances up. Something in his chest squeezes. It isn’t the usual squeeze from lack of air. It’s something else. He shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to identify this. Usually it’s just hunger. Or fatigue. Or cold. Or the kind of ache he has grown up with. But no, he can’t process it. The lack of identification and the experience itself makes him a little sad.

He mops quickly and doesn’t miss a spot.

 

Two weeks later, Jared gets a job. It’s a great job. He might make enough to get electricity outside of school. He could potentially buy apples for himself—if there’s enough money left over.

Don used to know Jared’s mother. When he caught Jared looking through his dumpsters for something to eat last week, he pulled Jared inside and said that that’s trespassing and disgusting. Why would he do that? Isn’t there anything to eat at home? Jared blurted out that no, there wasn’t and he was sorry but it smelled really good. He reached into his pockets and offered to give Don back what he technically stole. They were just a few pieces of garlic bread. Don made the face most adults make when Jared apologizes. He shook his head and grumbled something too soft for Jared to hear. Jared asked him to repeat it and Don’s shoulders bristled. He spoke louder and handed Jared an apron. No more digging through the trash—got it? Start working.

Pay day is on Friday. If someone tips him he can keep it. If he works hard enough the rest of the staff might share their tips with him too. Don starts him at seven dollars an hour. He says Jared will get paid under the table and Jared tries to figure out which table his pay might be hiding. In the end, he gets too busy to keep looking.

His job is fun. He has to pick up the dirty dishes from tables and replace them with new, clean ones from the bottom of his cart. If he breaks something he has to pay for it, so Don tells him to be careful but fast. The first dinner rush Jared works is confusing and overwhelming. The waitresses snap at him to move faster and the kitchen staff doesn’t let him use the sink to wash what’s in his dirty tub until it’s very late. No one shares their tips that night and none of the customers give him anything but that’s okay. Jared knows he can do better with a little time.

After a week at Don’s, Jared gets paid one hundred and forty dollars. The money isn’t handed to him under a table but Jared doesn’t mention that. Don is really nice. He adds in ten dollars. Plus, since Jared has done a good job busing tables and washing dishes, he can consider himself part of the staff. That means that every shift he works he can have one meal under ten dollars on the menu.

“Just ask Miguel,” Don says and pats Jared on the shoulder before he leaves. “Eat and go home.”

There’s so much on the menu. Jared bites his bottom lip. How can he ever choose? He runs his fingers over the laminated paper and shrinks into the booth. His days off are Monday and Tuesday but he works four to nine every day. The money in his pocket feels heavy.

The oldest waitress, the one who has worked for Don the longest, comes over. Her name is Betty. “C’mon Jared, just pick one. Miguel wants to go home.” The look on his face must reveal what he’s feeling because she grabs his menu and sighs that if he stays here long enough he can try everything. They’ll start from the top of the menu. Jared sits in his booth patiently, hands folded in his lap. It takes a lot of will power not to take out his money and count it again. He has to make this last. He can save half of it. Maybe he can spend five dollars of it and stand in the other line at school, where they serve pizza and fries. Thinking about food unearths his hunger. Luckily, Betty swings back and plops a plate in front of him. It’s the largest plate of spaghetti and meatballs that Jared has ever seen.

“He gave you extra,” Betty murmurs and sets down a glass of milk. “Eat up, don’t just stare at it. Go on.”

A few hours later, Jared throws up into the street. He ate too fast. He ate too much. He cries because his recklessness has cost him half of a good meal. The spaghetti was so good and the meatballs weren’t filled with gristle. He ate three breadsticks and finished that whole glass of milk. It’s the fullest he’s felt in a long time and now he’s wasting it. Betty boxed and bagged up the rest of what he couldn’t finish. Jared still feels awful for throwing up now.

He’s halfway between Don’s and where he’ll spend the night. It’s another two miles down Main and off of Cherry. Jared lays down on the street for a minute just to rest.

In the morning, he wakes up on the street and rushes to school, embarrassed but grateful for a few hours of good sleep.

 

In group they are supposed to talk about their feelings.

Specifically, Mrs. Han wants to know how everyone feels about their sexuality. Some of the kids are bisexual, others are lesbians, and some are gay. Jared isn’t sure what he is, no one has explained that to him. Plus, everyone speaks really fast and people mumble a lot and Mrs. Han stopped signing for him two meetings back. When everyone in the room laughs at a joke, Jared tries to smile a little. A small voice in his head tells him they might be laughing at him but he quiets it down. He smells like he spent the night out on the street—which is true, he can’t help it—and his clothes are dirty and falling apart. The backpack he has is not new or designer or even filled with the usual stuff. He keeps some clothes in there and the leftover spaghetti, which he has to eat for lunch because he’s afraid it’ll go bad if he saves it any longer.

A new person joins their group and they make everyone laugh with a joke just ten minutes in. Jared sighs softly and tries again to read people’s lips. But then it looks like he’s staring so he looks at the floor until group is over. The boy gets up from the couch and leaves with the new boy.

Jared has three more meetings to go until he can stop going. Mrs. Han doesn’t talk to him after meetings anymore. She’s very busy; Jared understands. He leaves after everyone else and walks over to the broom closet. He lets himself in with the key Mr. Jones gave him and sits down. He forgot to get a fork from the cafeteria but that’s okay. He eats out of the container as neatly as possible, wiping his hands on his jeans when he’s finished. This time he eats slower. He feels so good after eating that he falls asleep. When he wakes up again, it’s already halfway through Biology class. There’s no sense in interrupting class so he makes his way to the locker rooms for a shower.

Warm water is nice. He stands under it happily for a minute.

He digs through his backpack to find something new to wear. He can do laundry now that he has a job. The money from work has been sewn into the lining of his backpack for safekeeping until he decides how to spend it. As he’s putting on his shoes, dressed now, the locker room gets noisy. The boys that come in are loud enough that Jared can hear them without an issue. He has to leave. His hands start shaking as he ties his shoes. Forget the laces—move.

He bumps into the boy. The boy looks away.

One of the boy’s classmates shoves Jared. After that it’s all a blur. There’s too much noise for Jared to make sense of anything. He does hear one thing.

“He won’t make a sound.”

Dragged by his hair, outside onto the football field, the boys take turns hitting him. It’s not that bad. Jared wants to scream—it’s not that _bad_. His voice _does_ work; he _can_ make a sound. But he doesn’t because… well he doesn’t know why. Not even when his backpack and everything in it is hurled onto the roof and they leave him bleeding and gasping for breath on the grass.

Everything in his world is in his backpack. The only picture of his mother. His money. His tickets for food. His clothes. His teddy bear.

It’s a long time before anyone finds him.

 

Mr. Jones helps him get his backpack down from the roof. What Jared didn’t notice was that the boys filled his backpack with water and soda before they threw it.

Bubbles is so soggy that when Jared pulls on an arm it falls off.

He spends that night at home.

 

Three days later, Mr. Gallagher calls important people and they come looking for Jared.

They find him hog-tied to the furnace of a trailer, surrounded by empty glass bottles and crushed cans. The heat from the furnace has burned Jared’s wrists; the plastic ties have melted onto his skin. Someone takes a picture. Jared groans. That light is really bright.

A gloved hand points at Jared’s behind. Jared stiffens. Don’t touch it. Please. Don’t touch it.

“It’s a bottle,” someone gasps. “He shoved a bottle…”

Don’t touch it, Jared whimpers through the gag. Please. Don’t touch it. It hurts a lot. It hurts more than the furnace or the baseball bat or the cigarette burns or his face slammed into the door of the fridge. It hurts more than the light from someone’s flashlight shining into his eyes. It hurts more than one of the important people pointing at him and turning away to vomit.

Don’t. Please. Please don’t touch it.

When it was halfway in, Jared was screaming and his eyes were rolled back and his mouth hung open.

Don’t. Please. Please don’t touch it.

“Rookie,” someone grumbles.

 

A very nice doctor brings Jared an apple.

Jared holds out left his arm.

“No, that’s okay,” the doctor says with a smile and sits on the edge of Jared’s hospital bed. “We don’t need to take your blood pressure right now.” The apple is passed over and Jared takes a bite right away. It’s perfect. It’s crisp and chilled. Juice runs down his chin but he swipes it away with his good arm.

A lot of things were broken that Jared just hadn’t noticed: his right arm, the fingers on his right hand, and the big toe on his left foot.

“Jared,” the doctor speaks, his voice loud enough for Jared to hear. “Jared, do you know what happened to you? Why you’re here?”

If he answers correctly, does he get another apple? Jared chides himself for being so selfish, so greedy. Don visited yesterday. He didn’t say much. He shook his head and turned away and punched the wall. A nurse explained to Jared later that sometimes the hospital makes people afraid. Jared nodded. He could never picture Don afraid of anything but there are a lot of plastic tubes and machines here.

Mr. Gallagher is going to visit later today. Jared has missed three weeks of school. They should have started and finished _Huckleberry Finn_ by now. Hopefully Mr. Gallagher brings a copy with him.

It’s difficult to sign without his right hand but Jared tries. The doctor watches his hands carefully and nods in encouragement as Jared answers. Jared is here because he’s hurt and hospitals are where people go when they’re hurt. He’s hurt because he was bad. He cried a little too loud at home. It was distracting. That was bad.

He is bad.

Someone visited yesterday to talk to Jared. That’s their job, they explained, to talk to people. It sounds like a fun job. Jared told her he had a job busing tables. This person, a really nice lady who signed their entire conversation, told him that the doctors think something is wrong with him. She wanted to see if they were right. They talked about school and his favorite class and his favorite color and what he likes to eat. At the end of their conversation, she told him that his state of regression was a defense mechanism, not a disability. Jared didn’t understand all of that but she pat his good hand and thanked him for his time. Did this doctor talk to her?

“You aren’t bad, Jared. I can’t have you going home after this.” The doctor takes a deep breath. “How would you like to go to a new home?”

Oh.

No, he wouldn’t like that at all.

Someone has to take care of his stepfather. There was one time he was choking on his vomit in his sleep and Jared was there to roll him over. That was important. This is the way it’s always been, since he was ten years old and his mother passed away. This is just the way it’s always been. He knows this doesn’t happen to other boys and that’s okay. If it has to happen to him, that’s okay. But he can’t leave.

“I’m okay,” Jared says out loud.

He holds the apple core in his hand.

 

The night before Jared is supposed to have another surgery to fix his arm, someone comes into his room. It’s not the nurse who takes his blood pressure and temperature every two hours. It’s not the orderly who turns on the television for Jared and lets him watch cartoons. It’s not anyone Jared immediately knows.

Tubes are ripped out of him.

His left hand is pressed down until the IV is forced out. Jared doesn’t get to scream. It’s the black gag again. Jared is yanked by his hair and his bad arm off the bed and dragged to the window. Sometimes the nurses moved him over to the window so he could look outside. The glance outside Jared gets now is filled with darkness. His nose crunches and blood sprays everywhere. He cries through the gag and firm hands are on his throat. These hands have always been there.

Darkness that isn’t from outside presses into the sides of Jared’s eyes.

He can feel his broken fingers twitching.

He can feel his legs being spread and the hospital gown pushed up.

Light fills the room. It hurts.

Three nurses scream as they pull the hands off of Jared’s throat. An orderly runs in. Someone catches Jared before he falls over. He feels a squeeze in his chest. It’s like the squeeze from that one time in the bathroom. Oh. But the squeeze hurts. It hurts. It hurts…

Before darkness covers him completely, Jared thinks of the boy.

 

The art room was his favorite place in the school because it had spinning stools. The broom closet was a good place too—it was quiet and he could sleep there.

So Jared isn’t sure why he wakes up in the boy’s bathroom, holding a mop.

He’s standing there when the door swings open. Before he can question anything else the boy walks in. Jared doesn’t say anything. He looks away. Just like before, the boy uses the urinal and washes his hands. Clutching the mop, Jared glances up.

The boy pauses in front of the door with a look of concern on his handsome face. Jared learned his name but that was after, wasn’t it? How is this happening? Jensen. The boy’s name is Jensen. His father is a doctor, Jared knows that. He knows a lot about this boy. Even if Jared couldn’t catch every other word the boy said in group, Jared knows that he speaks with a soft Southern accent and says “hey” a lot.

“Hey.”

Startled, Jared grips onto the mop.

“Uh… would you… wanna come have lunch with me?”

Lunch? It’s early still. This happened in the morning, not the afternoon.

“You’re not real,” Jared sniffs, his voice sounding watery and distant to him, like it’s leaving.

The boy smiles. His green eyes are kind. He extends a hand. “So?”

 

Jared steps forward and lets go of the mop.

He feels another squeeze in his chest, followed by a sigh leaving his lips.

He’s going to show Jensen the art room.


End file.
